Okay, I just thought of another strange childhood "giant robot" toon: 'Tranzor Z'. What a truly bizarre show *that* was.

For starters, this was just about the only cartoon I can remember in which human characters actually met their demises onscreen in graphic ways, such as by getting torched by a robot with a flamethrower. Compare that to G.I.Joe, in which members of the Joe team evade an entire hail of bullets and laser blasts and, without returning fire, actually run up and punch the opposing COBRA soldiers in the mouth instead. :-)

The giant robot Tranzor Z was kept at the bottom of a deep pool of water, which of course is the preferred method of storage for the maximum longevity of heavy-duty electronic machinery. His "brain" was a detachable hover-car with a glass dome so that the driver could easily see out and control the action. This glass dome never cracked, no matter how much firepower Tranzor withstood. I don't think the enemy ever even bothered to target it specifically.

Tranzor Z had a female giant robot counterpart named Aphrodite A, whose claim to fame was that she had two cone-shaped missiles protruding from the front of her chest, which could be launched at opponents. As a kid, I didn't see anything intrinsically comical about the idea that these enemy robots were getting smacked upside the head with an atomic teat. The big fiery explosion was what counted. :-)

Apart from her ballistic bosoms, Aphrodite A's firepower was limited, so she usually got in a jam and required rescuing from our hero Tranzor Z, who, fortunately, did not have an anatomically correct weapon of mass destruction. What he *did* have, however, was "really bad breath". No kidding--Tranzor could release some kind of super-corrosive gas from his mouth which ate away the metal hulls of robotic adversaries.

I'm sure there was plenty of other weird stuff about Tranzor Z which I might never even have seen. Mom (this word is always capitalized) made me stop watching the show when she found out the names of the evil masterminds were "Dr. Demon" and "Devileen". Probably a good thing she did.

Iss "anyone else got 'giant robot cartoon' reminiscences?" achar